Center for Biological Diversity v. Burgum

The federal district court for the Central District of California denied the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) and other federal defendants’ motion for voluntary remand in a lawsuit challenging BSEE’s authorizations of extensions of ExxonMobil Corporation’s offshore oil and gas leases on the Pacific Outer Continental Shelf after a 2015 oil spill involving an onshore pipeline that transported oil produced in the Santa Ynez Unit in the Santa Barbara Channel. The court said it was “not convinced” that BSEE’s submissions established “an intent to seriously reconsider or re-review its decision,” which the plaintiffs had challenged as improperly relying on categorical exclusions under the National Environmental Policy Act and failing to consider harms (including contributions to climate change) in the national interest determination made under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act.

Center for Biological Diversity and a Native-led public-interest organization filed a lawsuit in the federal district court for the Central District of California challenging the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement’s (BSEE’s) authorizations of extensions of ExxonMobil Corporation’s offshore oil and gas leases on the Pacific Outer Continental Shelf. Operations had been shut down since May 2015 after the Plains All American Pipeline oil spill. The plaintiffs alleged that BSEE’s determination that granting the extensions was “in the National interest” ignored “evidence demonstrating that extending ExxonMobil’s leases is antithetical to the national interest in addressing the climate crisis, promoting public health and environmental justice, recovering endangered species, and otherwise protecting the environment given the numerous harms inherent in offshore oil and gas drilling.” In addition, they asserted that BSEE violated NEPA by categorically excluding the extensions from review.